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I say get rid of the owners!? Let the league own the NHL teams? I am sure the League can produce enough money. The owners just waste money like crazy instead of re-building the league the way it should be built. Put money back into the league not your pockets.

If they get into another lock out, its going to hurt the NHL. They will lose even more fans. It took a long time since the last lock out to get back to where it needed to be now.

In any sport, lets be honest do these players really earn the right to all that money they ask for every year they play? No...! When a player is a free agent their new contract should start out low then grow higher if they earn it. Its like earning respect? You don't get respect unless you earn it and work hard for it. Its the owners who get greedy and want to lock these players in for good so no one else signs them. You can sign players without a ridiculous amount of money. Heck I'd be happy making $1 million a year.

It always amazes me how self absorbed these owners are with their ****ing money.

players play because they love the game(or should anyway) the money is just a HUGE added bonus

If players only played for the love of the game this would not even be an issue. There is no reason any team owner franchise should take a loss. The #1 cost is labor by far. The #1 revenue is ticket sales. So they have 3 choices.

1. Lower labor costs (Players salaries)
2. Raise revenue (Ticket prices)
3. Put a team on the ice that can not compete

To me the best choice is to ask the players to accept still crazy high but more reasonable salaries. Back in the 50's-60's players had off season jobs. They didn't make 2-9 million dollars a year.

So you are the owner of a franchise losing money. What do you do? Do you raise ticket prices? Do you put a team on the ice that has no chance to compete? Or do you try to get the players to agree to keep player salaries at a more reasonable level?

I'm always happy to discuss anything from hoops, to hockey, to reality TV with anyone that is polite regardless of their opinion. With that said if you are disrespectful, dishonest, or an extremist type poster I may not waste my time replying to you.

If players only played for the love of the game this would not even be an issue. There is no reason any team owner franchise should take a loss. The #1 cost is labor by far. The #1 revenue is ticket sales. So they have 3 choices.

1. Lower labor costs (Players salaries)
2. Raise revenue (Ticket prices)
3. Put a team on the ice that can not compete

To me the best choice is to ask the players to accept still crazy high but more reasonable salaries. Back in the 50's-60's players had off season jobs. They didn't make 2-9 million dollars a year.

So you are the owner of a franchise losing money. What do you do? Do you raise ticket prices? Do you put a team on the ice that has no chance to compete? Or do you try to get the players to agree to keep player salaries at a more reasonable level?

The problem with that theory is that the league got the deal they wanted last time and ticket prices continued to rise as they continue to throw higher and longer contracts at their players even though there's no guarantee that to win you have to spend. The Calgary Flames have the third highest cap and where has that got them? Montreal, Toronto and Tampa are all in the top 10 as well so there's no reason to think you have to spend to be competitive, Nashville, Florida, ST.LOUIS, Ottawa, and Phoenix were all in the bottom 10 in cap space last year. Secondly the league continues to leave teams in places like Phoenix that continue to cost the entire league money. If they were truly using a business model then that team would have been somewhere else years ago along with a host of other teams that are "losing" money. But the league keeps them around to make it look like they aren't making as much money as they are on the whole for contract negotiations. It all comes down to greed. I've never seen a decent franchise have to search for owners, and that's because they are money makers, even now with Phoenix telling everyone they are a money losing team there's people that wanna buy it and why is that? Because they aren't REALLLY losing money, they might be on paper but people that can afford an NHL franchise didn't get to this point in their life by making bad business decisions. This is all about greed. I guarantee the owners in NY, Toronto, Montreal, Detroit, Boston, Calgary, Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Chicago, Pitsburgh etc don't want a lock out, they'll lose millions of dollars a day. I see them going past the deadline but the season will start in October IMO.
The one thing I would like is that the two sides just go work on a deal and stop trying to manipulate the media and the press into thinking one way or the other, it doesn't matter who the bad guy is here, just get the players back on the ice.

I still cant believe they havent signed a CBA at this point, this is absurd. Heres my problem, the current CBA is flawed, but its still producing record breaking revenue. Its a deal that the league already cancelled a season because to get. There could be a majority of owners wanting to do something off of the PA's proposal, but it only takes 8 of them (really 7 because the NHL still owns Phoenix) to reject the deal and its no deal.

Heres what I think needs to change. First remove the cap floor, no reason for mid range players to get overpaid on a team cause they need to get to the cap floor. It drives salaries up. Make the cap hit the amount of money (signing bonus or salary), that a player makes over the course of July 1- June 30, that players cap hit. This will cut out the stupid contracts. The idea of average for the cap hit was a great idea to allow for sliding contracts but they ruined that, punished one team for it and then the next season teams figure away around that. Have a set team salary cap for the next CBA, with each years ceiling noted, and not have it rise with the revenue.

Bsi, its been said by many the Jacobs (Bruins owner) is one of the driving forces in the lockout. I'm sure his stance is something along the lines of why should I give up part of my revenue to one of these teams that cant build a strong franchise thats not my fault.

Sly, while I get what your saying about the amount of money any athlete makes but I dont have as much blame on the players side of the deal. I agree their HRR split of 57% is high, but its not 57% of revenue its actually 57% of profit. There is also money taken out for what type of facilty (single/multi), they play in. The players have said offered lower percentages, but they want the money to go to the teams that need it. Plus if the owners had such a huge problem with the CBA, why were all those players signed this summer, especially with contracts that had signing bonus's instead of salary? If they cared that much about them losing money or not making as much of it they wouldnt have signed contracts that have money paid to them regardless of if there is a season or not. If the there is a full season lock out, the Wild would have to pay Parise and Suter each $20 million before the following season puck drop. $40 million dollars knowing there is chance of basically no revenue coming in. Thats just bad business. Struggling teams need be better with their finances, not just spend whatever the cap allows them and hope they will be compete.

I agree that both sides need to stop looking for sympathy through the media, even though the PA is making the owners look awful. Split the HRR 50/50, keep salary arbitration, make entry level contracts 4 years, and make an age for UFA status, not years of service. Years of service will kill what strength the US College leagues have developed. If it goes 10 years, going to college for 3 years will not allow you to become unrestricted until 31. Whereas you can sign a contract at 18 go to juniors and eat up those years of service.